best way to train for ~50 move sustained overhanging route

Other than the obvious (get on the route and work chunks of it and figure out the moves) what is the best way to train for a very sustained pumpy overhanging route if you don't have direct access to it whenever you want. The majority of the holds are edges and pinches and there aren't any real GREAT resting jugs...only places where I can maybe cop a short rest (but it would give diminishing returns to stay on any of the "rests").

Should I be setting circuits on my bouldering wall (12'x12') that are long (in the neighborhood of 50 moves?) or is there a "smarter" way to train for this.

Currently what I am doing is climbing on weekends on random routes (mainly onsighting stuff) and during the week I mix it up with 4x4s one day and 2 days of hangboarding (doing heavy weighted single max hangs then doing 5 sets of repeaters after the 5 single max hangs are done). I currently do the max hangs with four finger open grip and add 45 pounds and hang for 8 seconds and rest for 3 minutes. Then I do repeaters (which I suck at) with FIVE pounds currently and do a mix of slopers or four finger open for 5 sets of 7 seconds on 4 seconds off for 6 reps per set.

Should I take out some of the hangboard and add in a long circuit trying to simulate the route (I already have my wall set to the angle of the route).

One more thing...when I get a chance to try the route...trying it ONE TIME taxed me to the point I couldnt really climb the rest of the day. It just drained me (it felt like a central nervous system drain honestly). I don't think its physically over my head for what I'm capable of my body just obviously wasnt ready for the shock of 50 sustained moves. So, I'd like to get to the point where I can handle 3-4 runs up it. I don't want to redpoint it (really don't care about RP at this point in my climbing) - I want to master it and be able to smoothly climb it with no flailing (that would entail redpoint obviously).

Thanks for any insight! This type of pumpy overhanging climbing has never been easy for me - but that is what makes it fun for me!

I'm not really a high level climber either. But I'll give my opinion on strategy: If you don't already have great technique... work on that. Here's a good vid that has helped me a lot.

If you can, I'd also set up the home wall to emulate the sequences you'll encounter on the problem you're working. Dial those in and do some circuits that mimic the movement and duration of the real thing (you might have to draw yourself a route map that shows the hold sequence, differentiates the good from bad holds, highlights hidden holds, clipping holds, and rest holds etc).

Once your simulation is dialed, I might even start to reduce the size and angle of the holds in order to really train accuracy and strength. That way, once you are able to get back on the rock, it will feel familiar, maybe even easier, and totally doable.

Beef up your core exercises; practice popping your feet off from the wall, and recovering. You'll likely encounter that a lot while working this thing, so you might as well learn to recover quickly and accurately, whilst toning up that mid-section.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

Leave a fixed rope on it

^ ahahaha ;)

thanks for the thoughts so far.

I really do think my core has to strengthen up.

That video is nice too! I'll watch that later this afternoon...I used to have flow in climbing...now...not so much...6 years no climbing will do that to a person I suppose haha.

question: does ARC need to be done at the specific angle the climb is at to be most beneficial or does it not matter? So if all I had access to is my overhanging wall (which I find difficult to stay on continuously longer than 4 minutes) could I use a local vertical wall (boulder) to traverse back and forth doing ARC? Would this benefit me on endurancey/pumpy routes???

Say if I did 2 sessions per week of 30 minutes of continous climbing below my pump level (so my forearms are "warm" but not pumped) at a local boulder field.

You need to figure out how close you are, and build your plan from there.

What I mean is, you'll typically get sustained improvement in some aspect (say PE, strength, etc) for about 3 weeks of training if you haven't really been training it, then the returns curve will start to flatten out and additional returns will be get smaller until you plateau.

So if you are reasonably close and a ~10%-20% improvement in PE would be enough, then do a ~3-4 week phase of simulation. Create some mockups of similar move style, number, and angle and hit it hard with intervals every 2-3 days.

If you're not close enough, build a multi-cycle plan with phases for all the attributes.

5.samadhi wrote:question: does ARC need to be done at the specific angle the climb is at to be most beneficial or does it not matter?

It matters a lot because the percentage of your weight supported by your arms varies by angle. ARCing goes a long way in developing techniques specific to angle as well.
Since you can do the moves (I assume) you don't need any more power, so drop the max hangs. You need PE, Endurance and Stamina. PE is trained with 4x4s, 6x8s or 1x20s. I like to mix them up to fight boredom. Endurance is trained with ARCing. Stamina is trained with CIR, Continuos Intensity Repetitions, 12-15 repetitions of a flash grade route with full recovery between routes/problems. This trains the all-day ability to give good goes on your goal route.

brendan, perfect informative response, thank you.

So I need to find an ARC boulder that is similar angle so I can have a similar amount of weight hanging on my arms. I might just put ARC aside for now and focus on PE and stamina (since yes I can do all the moves on the route now but can only link up 2 and 3 bolt sections at the moment cuz my PE sucks and my stamina is in the toilet - ie one go doing all the moves and through the sections I can go and I'm DONE for the afternoon).

For the stamina building exercise you would basically do laps on a route (downclimb or lower off?) straight in a row with no rest (so say do 12 laps then rest and move on to another flashable route). Does it matter how long the routes are relative to my project route? My bouldering wall I can get in 8-9 moves before I have to start downclimbing. How many laps should I be thinking about doing in a session as a 5.12 climber (or should I be thinking in terms of feet???)?

5.samadhi wrote:For the stamina building exercise you would basically do laps on a route (downclimb or lower off?) straight in a row with no rest (so say do 12 laps then rest and move on to another flashable route).

Each repetition gets full rest in between, so you only do 12-15 repetitions in a 2 hour session. The first 5 should feel too easy, the second 5 tiring, the third 5 really hard.

I'm skeptical that there's a 5.12-ish route that has ~50 consecutive moves with no worthwhile rest. Do you mind sharing hte name of the route in question? I would bet there are rests in there that you haven't found yet, or perhps you've found you're unable to recover at the so-called rests, and could benefit a great deal from improving your resting skills. Resting effectively on steep terrain takes practice, just like any other aspect of climbing. If you haven't found any rests, perhaps you should watch or talk to some other climbers to see if/where they are resting on the route. A rest stance may feel desparate at first, but with rehearsal can eventually provide complete recovery.

ARCing is very effective for improving resting skills and learning how not to over-grip. It sounds like you're eager to bag this project this season, so its probably too late for ARCing to help you, but practicing resting on the route will probably pay off huge dividends.

From a physical training perspective, once you've broken the route down into sprints between rests, it will be much easier to train for the shorter power-endurance sections. Assuming you can find at least one good rest, I would recommend doing intervals on a 20-30 move circuit. Aim to complete 4 intervals, with 4 min rest between each interval. Then cut the rest time down by 30 seconds each time you repeat the workout (1-2x per week, depending on your indoor/outdoor schedule), until you can complete all 4 intervals with 2 min rest. The key to this workout is to find the right circuit, which usually takes some trial and error. As others have said, you want the hold type and angle to be specific to your goal route if possible.

Hey Mono thanks for responding! You're right its not that there are no rests (I should have been clearer) its that the rests seem to give me back less than I get from them...staying on the "rests" seem to sap more energy than they give unfortunately. Its chainsaw massacre at the Red (so obviously I have seen 5.12+ climbers on it and resting on every single hold that I feel desperate on ha!). In fact I saw a woman climb it before I thretched my way up the other day and she climbed it beautifully, stopping along the way and chalking/shaking out...she claimed her fitness was "down" (down if she was climbing 5.13 last season maybe!).

Anyways, I like your idea of improving my resting skills...I think its 90% mental...I get "freaked out" easily on overhanging sport routes because my background is NC trad climbing on granite (sometimes overhanging but never as overhanging as the Red).

So, if I train with 20 move circuits (which is possible by up/down climbing on my wall) and do four reps of that...is that enough for the entire day??? Should I feel VERY worked at the end of 4 sets of 20 move circuit (the same circuit repeated 4 times?)? Or should I still feel somewhat freshish???

Also, I was having a problem locking off and clipping. I could hang on with both hands to the wall for a LONG time (felt pretty comfortable honestly with good footwork and both hands on). But when I tried to lock off and clip I felt like a timer was running (sometimes like as little as 3-4 seconds before I felt like I would drop off!). Is there any specific way to practice locking off that you would recommend or will this just come with more PE fitness?

Thanks a lot for responding...both your and Brendan's posts are extremely informative.

Brendan N. (grayhghost) wrote: Each repetition gets full rest in between, so you only do 12-15 repetitions in a 2 hour session. The first 5 should feel too easy, the second 5 tiring, the third 5 really hard.

Ah, OK, so on my bouldering wall I could do 12-15 repetitions of a "route" (say up-down-up-down climb) with rests in between to feel recovered enough to go for another rep. The first half dozen will feel do-able then I will start to feel the pain through the last half dozen.

Would the "routes" be shorter than Mono's prescribed 20-30 move circuits (he says do four of these in a training session) or could they be 20 moves but EASIER moves than the 20-30 moveX4 workout?

How often could I do CIR training (say 2 or 3 days in a row???)

5.samadhi wrote: Would the "routes" be shorter than Mono's prescribed 20-30 move circuits (he says do four of these in a training session) or could they be 20 moves but EASIER moves than the 20-30 moveX4 workout? How often could I do CIR training (say 2 or 3 days in a row???)

I've done CIR workouts using routes and boulder problems just to keep things interesting. The most important aspect is keeping the intensity high enough that you are training, but not pushing over into unrecoverable destruction. This ~80% level pushes your strength, technique and volume optimally. How often you do CIR would depend on how well you recover, only you can gauge that.

Where do you fall at on Chainsaw? Most leaders that are close fall trying to recover so they can clip the bolt just below the chains where the holds get a little smaller.

There are several rests that are usable for climbers of the grade, but you can't expect a full recovery. The big secret is to take plenty of rest at the bottom of the route and take less time at the progressively worse stances you'll find higher up. If you can't just sprint it already, you probably won't get the 'fitness' to sprint it this season.

The biggest trick to Chainsaw is to know where to recover before you get to that hard to clip bolt. You can easily determine this by talking to other climbers or by hangdogging the route and searching for the most relaxed stances. Use your core and your legs to build stability into your rests.

Finally, where are you warming up for your attempts? Getting solidly warmed up prepares your body to fight on an endurance route. It can be pretty tough for climbers breaking into 5.12 to warm up at the 'lode. Maybe you need to pick a different 5.12a to get used to the difficulty.

Here is the beta. Sprint to the rest at the bolt after the chain draw, cop a shake at the flat shelf, and run to the top. It might be tempting to rest at bolt two, but don't. You have only been climbing for 15 easy feet.

Also, just ran the route in my head and it has around 30 moves.

what about the rest below the clipping hold of the bolt before the chain draw bolt? I need to bump my hand up to left hand crimp from the "shelf" to be able to even clip the draw! I'm thinking the shelf could be a good rest??? Then sprint through the section to the next bolt (like you say) and rest and then go for anchors. So this would mean there would be two rests that if I perfected my technique I could hang out awhile on and recover some.

So I would need to train for 15-25 move sections with the ability to recover at somewhat slopey shelf holds.

You're right I might have over-estimated the number of moves. My eyesight sucks bad (lol) and I wanted to over-estimate rather than under-estimate for training purposes.

5.samadhi wrote:Hey Mono thanks for responding! You're right its not that there are no rests (I should have been clearer) its that the rests seem to give me back less than I get from them...staying on the "rests" seem to sap more energy than they give unfortunately. ... So, if I train with 20 move circuits (which is possible by up/down climbing on my wall) and do four reps of that...is that enough for the entire day???

I think you're sort of missing the point on training for resting/recovering. It's not the same to climb, get off the route, and rest as it is to rest in the middle of a route.

You can actually train just that, and exactly that. Something I used to do (and should do again) which I found very, very helpful is this: get to where there's a hangboard with some feet behind it, or perhaps a few jugs next to a few large crimps on an overhanging wall. Alternate hands on the hangboard without ever getting off of it. Rest one hand while the other is working, then change, and keep changing. When you feel strong, you can switch to the crimps. When you feel tired, you switch to the jugs. Still tired? Move to better feet. Even better, you can do this exercise with a step stool in front. Higher on the stool, you have more weight on your hands, and lower feet, less weight.

This can give you 5 or 10-minute sessions of training your resting ability. It helped me a lot, especially for climbing at the Red.

shotwell wrote:Finally, where are you warming up for your attempts? Getting solidly warmed up prepares your body to fight on an endurance route. It can be pretty tough for climbers breaking into 5.12 to warm up at the 'lode. Maybe you need to pick a different 5.12a to get used to the difficulty.

(cough) Burlier's Bane (cough).

Seriously, all great beta here on the training. Ultimately, for Chainsaw, especially if this is one of your first 12a's, the beta is just get really comfortable on THAT route. It's definitely more of an endurance final exam, compared to most other 12a's at the RRG, and most ARCing or even 4x4's that you will try in the gym will still leave you desperate on the route if you have not gotten comfortable with hanging out on steep, not-perfect holds.

So just put your time in on that route. When you send it, you'll be well on your way to pushing into the 12b/c range at the RRG.

I love this forum after re-reading everybody's posts in this thread. You all are great to help with advice.

Seriously, I've been taking notes... Good thread.

I'm not convinced that Chainsaw is 50 moves. The business end of it is like 5.

Just climb the route and get the top wired.